When Rights Become Political Spoils

The first amendments to the Constitution, contained within a Bill of Rights intended to protect us from the dark side of our rulers' human nature, contain some of our most basic and important freedoms. Without them, we are merely inmates in whatever institution the elected decide to construct around us. At the risk of oversimplification, the Bill of Rights tells the elected that their designs have limits, which we consider sacred as deriving from God and not man.
On their own, those articulated rights are the model of clarity and simplicity. However, because they apply to all, and convey no preference or advantage to classes or sects, they are unacceptable to some. They must be rewritten and ultimately replaced by what is more agreeable to those who resent having their grand designs thwarted by long-dead geniuses. As the left is wont to do, they have set about not to entirely dissolve the protections of the Bill of Rights, but to unilaterally assume the role of arbiter, to constrict...(Read Full Article)